


A Different Game Now

by LisaTheDork



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Choose Your Own Ending, OC, a blatant self insert, also lisa is Too Strong, and i settled on a weird self insert, and it was either Lisa or a new character, but it only comes from one character, cause apparently im hella relatable, did i mention theres a ridiculous amount of cursing, look i wanted a story people would interact with, story is decided by comments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-08-07 18:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16413749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LisaTheDork/pseuds/LisaTheDork
Summary: The story of Undertale as you know it. Or is it? Haley, the new human in place of the human we all recall, must find her way through the maze that is the Underground. But this isn't just any fanfiction! Oh no! Your decisions will impact just what our protagonist chooses to do and whether she'll follow her heart. Or her knife.Alternatively: You have to help a new human through the Underground but she is Not Very Determined and actually Very Afraid And Easily Distracted so You have to move her onward with Your thoughts and invisible hands.





	1. The Fall And The Flower

The girl sat up, groaning as she rubbed the back of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, whining softly as she gently tapped the back of her head. It felt like she’d been thwaped over the back of the head with a bat!

“Owww.” She whimpered, cracking one eye open to peer at her surroundings.

A large bed of golden flowers spanned the ground directly beneath her, then gave way to smooth stone floor and craggy stone walls. Looking up, she realized just how far down she’d fallen into this cave. Her nerves twitched with fear as she stared up at the sky so high above.

Getting up, she looked to see if there was any way to climb back out only to find just sheer walls all around with no way to climb up to any ledges. Dejected, she looked around again, this time paying attention to see if there was any other way out.

Down a short hallway to her left, she spotted a rather ornamental doorway carved of apparently purple rock. With no other options at this point, she stood, wincing hard at how sore her back end was, and set forward to find a way back up.

Stepping through the doorway, she was greeted with the peculiar sight of a flower with what looked like a drawn-on smiley face in the middle of the small room in a single patch of light she couldn’t determine a source for.

Worriedly approaching the flower, the girl tilted her head and leaned down to get a closer look at the oddly vibrantly yellow plant.

“Well howdy!” It beamed and the girl screeched in panic, scrambling backwards and falling over in surprise. “Well gosh! That isn’t a very nice way to greet somone~!”

“Wh-hu-ah-uh-mmmm!” She slapped a hand over her mouth, using the other to point at the flower as it leaned over, nearly upside down, still grinning in a way that hadn’t changed but was now somehow creepier than before.

“Awwww, you’re new to the Underground, aren’t’cha? What was I saying before? Og yeah! I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower! Guess lil’ ole me will have’ta show you how things work around here then!” It winked, sticking its tongue out cheekily as some odd little sparkle appeared, the girl quickly questioning her life choices and whether she’d actually died from that fall and this was some weird as heck purgatory.

Suddenly, the world was black and white and a box appeared before her with a red heart in the middle. The flower beamed at her from the other side of the box.

“This is your SOUL!” It told her excitedly. “SOULs start off weak but you can make it stronger by gaining LV!”

“L-LV?” She attempted to mimic the way Flowey had said it, squinting in confusion. “Wait like... “

“LOVE!” Flowey spoke up before she could finish her thought. “Down here, LOVE is shared through little white…. “Friendliness pellets”.” Small white pellets, the very same the flower had just described, she was sure, appeared from seemingly nowhere, spinning in place as a shifty expression ghosted across Flowey’s face. Brightening it’s expression before she could say anything to point it out, Flowey spoke again. “Move around! Get as many as you can!”

It didn’t feel right to listen for some reason, but she didn’t know enough about this whole… anything to refute it. Against her better judgement, the girl willed the heart to move up the box and collected the little sunflower seed shaped pellets.

A yelp of pain and she was on her knees, clutching her chest as a red bar on the bottom dropped, the numbers beside it, “20/20”, dropping down to “1/20” as the pellets blinked from existence. Flowey threw its head back, cackling with sick enjoyment.

“You IDIOT!!” Its grin twisted into something horrifying and downright villainous. “Like anyone would let a chance at free EXP slip by! Haven’t you figured it out yet? In this world-” The girl gasped, eyes widening as the flower’s face became more twisted. “It’s KILL or BE KILLED!!!” It cackled as a ring of pellets surrounded both the heart and the girl. She whimpered fearfully as the pellets started to close in on her, a cry of panic bubbling at the back of her throat even though she was sure no one would come to her aid.

Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the pellets vanished and Flowey’s laughter cut short with a confused frown changing his expression. “Wha- huh?”

Another pellet, this one shaped more like a flame, blinked to life next to Flowey, catching both parties’ attention quickly. Flowey screeched as the pellet hit him, sending the flower flying off to the side, though the girl’s attention turned to the new figure that took Flowey’ place before her/

“Oh, what a miserable creature!” The goat woman said, looking at the human girl with such a soft expression, she felt her heart tighten in her chest. “Tormenting a poor, innocent youth!”

Getting back to her feet, the girl looked the woman who had rescued her over with cautious curiosity. She was easily taller than herself, with purple robes with an interesting insignia she’d never seen before displayed on the woman’s chest.

“My name is Toriel, child. I am the caretaker of the Ruins” The woman smiled and held a hand out to the human. “What is your name, dear one?”

“H-... Haley… My name’s Haley.”


	2. Puzzles and Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haley discovers she's got much farther to go than she initially thought.

Hesitantly, Haley reached out to grab the goat woman’s hand. Toriel’s face softened into a comforting smile and understanding eyes.

“Welcome to the Underground, my child. Please, come with me.” Toriel smiled and then led the human gently by the hand through the door behind where Flowey had been.

“Where… am I?” Haley asked tentatively, easily keeping stride with the woman as they walked towards the stairway. She spotted something glowing between the two staircases but chose to ignore it for the time being.

“This is the Ruins, my child. A place filled with puzzles and monsters.”

“M-monsters?!” Her mind was filled with images of every scary movie she’d ever seen (few as they were) as well as Flowey, who she couldn’t think of a better term for.

“Yes, but they are quite peaceful here. The puzzles are the most dangerous things in the Ruins. Like this one.” Toriel stopped inside the doors, pointing to a bunch of large gray buttons on the ground to their right.

“Puzzles are ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room. Please, adjust yourself to the sight of them.” Letting go of Haley’s hand, Toriel walked over the second and last rows of buttons and flipped a switch the human hadn’t noticed before on the wall.

Toriel smiled as she stood in front of the door that was now open. “So long as you stay close, it will all be fine. Come, I think you will like the next one.”

“A-actually, I think I forgot something, I’ll catch up in a minute.” Haley pointed over her shoulder and quickly returned to the other room before Toriel could say anything.

Haley hopped down the stairs and turned towards where she’d seen the sparkling object before. It sat there still, twinkling ambiguously in the air. She thought it odd Toriel hadn’t mentioned it but perhaps she hadn’t noticed it? Whatever the reason, she walked up to it, curiously leaning down to see if there was something holding it up.

Seeing nothing, she stood back up and stared curiously at the shining object again. It was bright, sure, but not blindingly so. She wondered if it was warm so she put her hand out to grab it.

A black box with a white trim appeared, white letter in an oddly pixelated font appeared so suddenly she jumped and squeaked.

“HALEY LV: 1  
RUINS: ENTRANCE  
SAVE? RETURN?”

Looking the text box over in confusion, she decided to hit the save button. A sound played and the box text changed.

“STATE SAVED”

She didn’t like that very much but decided to leave it be. Toriel was calling to her now and was likely about to come to check on her. The box vanished as suddenly as it appeared and Haley dashed up the stairs.

“Oh, I was starting to worry.” Toriel said as Haley came to a stop in the room with the buttons. “Did you find what you forgot?”

“Yup!” Haley smiled brightly, unable to ignore the warmth in her chest at the woman’s concern. It was nice. “So, what is this next puzzle?”

Toriel smiled and clasped her hands together. “Oh, it is here in the next room. Come!”

With that, Toriel led the way through the doors. A larger room awaited them, with a sign at the edge of the small pathway and a plaque of some kind on the far wall. Toriel stopped beside the sign, and smiled.

“To make progress here, you will need to trigger several switches. Do not worry, I have labelled the ones you need to flip.” Then walked across the small bridge that gave a way across what Haley assumed was a canal of some kind.

Before following the goat monster, Haley inspected the closer sign. “Read the signs!” It advised her and she decided that’s probably be a good idea, who knew what these could tell her? The further sign, to her amusement, read “Stay on the path!” How silly, to add this away from the path.

Haley then walked across the small bridge where Toriel waited before the next bridge. A switch on the far wall had some text and arrows on the wall beside it. Toriel simply nodded towards the switch so Haley approached it.

“Please press this switch -TORIEL” The text on the wall said. She chuckled under her breath, not sure what to make of how this room seemed to have been set up with a child in mind and not a 20 year old girl. She flipped the switch and looked back over as Toriel clapped her hands together, pride in her eyes as she beamed.

They crossed the next bridge and Haley went right to the next switch.

“Splendid! I’m proud of you, young one!” Toriel declared with a big smile and her hands clasped to her chest. “Let us move to the next room.”

In the next room, which seemed more the size of the room with the buttons, sat some kind of mannequin. Haley normally didn’t like mannequins, but this one seemed… cute? Like she could pick it up and carry it like a stuffed animal.

“As a human living in the Underground, monsters may attack you. You will need to be prepared for this situation.” Wait, living in the Underground? When was this decided? Haley bit her tongue to hold back the questions as Toriel continued on. “However, worry not! The process is simple. When you encounter a monster, you will enter a FIGHT.” Great, she was horrible at fighting. Anyone could probably beat her with her wimpy upper body strength.

“While you are in a FIGHT, strike up a friendly conversation.” WHAT. What kind of logic was that?! If someone was trying to kick her ass, when would she have time to even try that?! “Stall for time. I will come to resolve the conflict.”

Haley may have never actually been in an actual fight before, but none of that seemed right, but if Toriel was gonna show up to keep people from kicking her butt, who was she to question the…. Odd logic of it all. Besides, these were monsters, everything most operate different from how she understood things. “Practice talking to the dummy!”

She walked up to the dummy, only for the world to turn black and white as it did when she met Flowey. In a moment of panic at the thought, Haley shouted and stumbled back away from the dummy. The color returned and Toriel rushed over to Haley who had dropped to her bottom.

“Oh dear, are you alright, my child?” The woman gently grabbed Haley’s arms and looked her over. “You do not have to FIGHT the dummy if you do not want to.” She assured the human who nodded quickly.

Haley rubbed at her face and tried to calm her heart. If the fact that the world losing color so suddenly hadn’t startled her enough, the thought of how close to being murdered by a psyhcopathic flower had been a good enough kicker.

“We can try again another time, it’s alright.” Toriel smiled gently. “Let us try another puzzle instead. Would that be alright?”

Haley took a breath and then nodded. “Yeah, that’s... That’d be good.”

Toriel smiled and helped the human to her feet. Together, they left the room, Haley glancing back at the dummy woefully. She had been so startled she hadn’t even had a chance to pay attention to the buttons that had appeared fro but a moment under the box she remembered her “SOUL” had appeared in during her encounter with Flowey.

Toriel stops beside the odd path in the middle of the room and looks down at Haley with a smile. “There is another puzzle in this room… I wonder if you can solve it?”

It had surely meant to have been meant to under her breath but Haley took it as a challenge. After thoroughly screwing that thing with the dummy up, she was determined to do better this time.

As they walked through the small hallway between the room with the path and whatever the next room held, Haley spotted a sign. Before she could read it, however, the world flashed black and white.

Haley yelped and stumbled back a step, looking about in confusion until a small frog like creature with something that looked like a face in its stomach. The box in front of her read suddenly read “Froggit attacks you!” The buttons she had just been wondering about appeared so she took a moment to read what they each said.

“FIGHT” “ACT” “ITEM” and “MERCY”, they said. Her hand hovered over the FIGHT button and then over the ACT button, remembering what Toriel had said about stepping in during a FIGHT.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

FIGHT or use MERCY? These are the options available to you, PLAYER. You must decide what our Human will do now. Will you lead her down the path of Genocide, or up the way of Pacifist?


	3. Unnecessarily Dramatic

Odd as it was, she felt a gentle pressure, like someone nudging her hand towards the “MERCY” option. She was already confused beyond a doubt about literally everything else going on so she ignored the inevitable question at the back of her mind and pressed the button.

Before anything else could happen, Toriel appeared and shot the smaller monster a rather fierce scolding look which, for some reason, sent the Froggit leaving ashamedly. A laugh slipped out of the girl’s mouth at the scene, but they then continued on their way, Haley unable to suppress a sigh of relief as color returned to the world.

Sparing a glance at the sign she’d seen before as they walked past it, Haley realized it read “The western room is the eastern room’s blueprint.”

What an odd sign…

The two enter into the next room and Haley’s blood ran cold in shock at the spikes laid out before them. It seemed to be the only way across to the next doorway, which made Haley that much more nervous about the entire situation.

Toriel frowned thoughtfully as she looked out over the spikes. “This is the puzzle, but…” She looked down at the human who inched closer to her in obvious fear. “Here, take my hand for a moment.” Toriel smiled and offered her hand to the human.

It had startled Haley for a moment, but she took the other’s hand a little too eagerly, clinging to her like a child would to their mother. Toriel’s smile brightened further at the girl’s reaction, then led the way through the maze, careful to keep a slow pace for the jumpy human.

“Puzzles seem a little too dangerous for now.” She said when they had made it to the other side. Haley glanced back at the puzzle, then at Toriel and nodded.

Continuing to hold hands, Toriel led Haley to the next room, which was already giving the human a bad feeling.

The hallway was absurdly long, the other end nearly impossible to make out. The path curved oddly and unnecessarily and she could see something at the far end, but only barely.

Toriel let go of Haley’s hand and turned to face her, hands held neatly in front of her. “You have done excellently thus far, my child. However, I have a difficult request to ask of you.”

Oh sweet jesus please no.

In her mind, Haley begged that Toriel wasn’t about to try and fight her now.

“I would like you to walk to the end of the room by yourself.”

Wait, what? Relief flooded her system and Haley felt her shoulders relax. If it was something so simple, surely she’d be fine.

“Forgive me for this.” …. _What the fuck was THAT supposed to mean?!_

Toriel then turned and started walking away but at a pace so quick there was no way Haley would be able to catch up, even sprinting, which she did after a moment’s confusion.

Her mind immediately jumped to staying in Toriel’s footsteps in case there were traps or something. But then it went right to just catching up with Toriel as childish fear of loneliness invaded her mind. “Toriel wait!” Haley nearly wailed in panic. Somehow, the tall monster had all but vanished even though the hallway was completely straight. “Don’t leave me behind!”

Unable to continue running, she slowed and stopped at what she would guess to be halfway down the hall to catch her breath. Looking up, she realized Toriel really wasn’t anywhere in sight. Panic rose up again at the back of her throat, but the human took a deep breath, letting her head hang as she leaned on her knees.

Toriel wouldn’t have actually left her behind, right? Right. So she just needed to get to the other end of the room and she’d probably find Toriel there. Maybe it was like an optical illusion and Toriel was just waiting at the door.

With that thought in her head as a deterrent for whatever other intruding ideas may come, she continues down the hall at a brisk walk, unable to ignore the fear crawling on her back at being left alone so suddenly.

To her surprise, Toriel was nowhere to be seen, though the odd thing she had seen from the other end turned out to be a single pillar by the door.

“Toriel?” She called, looking around for some hidden door or a curtain to open. Just before she could leave the room, the goat woman suddenly appeared from behind the pillar.

“Greetings, my child!” Toriel smiled as she stopped in front of the human, Haley releasing a sigh of relief. “Do not worry, I did not leave you. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time.” She gestured to the pillar and Haley tried to recall if she had seen any hints of the goat woman when she was walking within sight of the backside of the pillar. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“However,” Toriel added before Haley could relax too much. “There was an important reason for this exercise. To test your independence.”

...Okay, that was fair, but she was 20 years old and a middle child. She could definitely take care of herself- she was then reminded of how she almost just had a panic attack at that moment and decided to keep quiet. 

“I must attend to some business, and you must stay alone for a while.” Oh…. oh boy. “Please remain here. It’s dangerous to explore by yourself.”

“I-I thought you said the monsters here were peaceful?” Haley asked nervously.

“They are, but there are puzzles ahead that I think may be too dangerous for right now.” Toriel smiled gently, putting a hand on Haley’s shoulder. “I have an idea! I will give you a cellphone, so you can keep in touch with me.” Toriel produced a small flip phone from a pocket in her robe that the girl hadn’t even noticed before and handed it to her. “If you have a need for anything, just call.”

Haley smiled and looked down at the phone before smiling at Toriel happily. “Okay. I can handle that.”

Toriel nodded. “I will be back soon. Be good, alright?” She definitely seemed a little worried, especially after that little meltdown, but Haley was determined to not give the poor woman more to worry about.

With that, though, Toriel turned and left the room.

_Now an option is left to you, will you stay put, or move forward? How will YOUR DETERMINATION lead you?_


End file.
